Our Learning these past 2 weeks

 It is hard to believe that we are down to the last week (and a day) of this eventful school year.  I have a lot of news to catch you up with.  Last week I created a detailed blog for your interest and enjoyment and then forgot to hit the publish button, so here is an update on our work:

In Language Arts, we have had several projects on the go.  The one the students have been most excited about is our research into Cougars.  We began reading non-fiction cougar books out loud in class and learning to record important information in point form.  We then read some information from trusted websites and watched some informational videos.  Our final source of information was one of the staff from the Calgary zoo, who met with us via video chat from the cougar habitat at the zoo.  We got to ask our questions, hear about some amazing things that cougars can do, and we got to see the cougars roaming around their enclosure.  It was an exciting event.  This week we have been working to turn our notes into complete sentences.  Once we have written our sentences in our writing notebooks, we began working on creating a google slideshow about cougars.  This is a work in progress and students are at various stages of this work.  We will be trying to complete this work in this coming week, but if you would like to see what your child has done so far, you can check out their work through the google classroom.  The assignment is under Literacy Centres May/June.  You will notice spelling mistakes and incomplete work at this stage.  I am not worrying about that right now as this is a chance for your child to work independently to create some non-fiction text.  It is about exploring the medium and learning to navigate the technology with confidence.  If you would like to learn more about cougars along with your child, here are some links that you may enjoy, but please do not work on the presentation at home this weekend, as we will be doing some more of this work in class:

http://naturemappingfoundation.org/natmap/facts/cougar_k6.html

http://quietube7.com/v.php/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feavfdrhBwc

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/mountain-lion

Another big highlight for the week has been our final trip to the coulee.  We had wonderfully scorching weather for the day, but the students did some amazing learning.  We used our pencils and our bodies to help us measure objects in nature, did some sketching, and listened to Saa'Kokoto's a story about Okotok and Napi.  We learned about a number of important plants in our native environment including the wide rose, which is currently in bloom, and the two most common trees in the coulee, balsam poplar and trembling aspen.  Students learned to look at the leaves and bark closely to tell the trees apart and found out that aspen trees produce their own sunscreen.  When we returned to school, students did some great writing about their experiences. 

We wrapped up our skipping unit this week in Phys. Ed.  I am so impressed at how the students have progressed with their individual skipping skills.  They have also gotten very proficient at jumping the big rope while others turn.  Many of them can now run in and run out of a turning rope, which is a tricky skill to master.  Hopefully they will enjoy some skipping over the summer months.

Of course, with Father's Day coming up this weekend, we have done some writing and a special present for our dads.  I have pictures of us working, but you will have to wait to see the results. 

Our Math in the past two weeks has been about reviewing the concepts of addition and subtraction.  Students have been challenged to show what they know and how they can calculate equations of addition and subtraction.  Some students use counting forward and backwards, some use their number line or hundred chart, and some use blocks or counters to help them.  By the end of grade one, students should be able to calculate addition and subtraction equations with numbers between one and twenty.  We have also been working on open ended problems that have more than one possible solution.  Students can draw or use objects to help them figure out solutions and then record them in an equation.  This type of work allows student to develop flexibility with numbers.

As we come to the last week of school, we are getting ready to ensure that everything is collected and organized at school.  We had our final library exchange last week and we are asking that all library books be returned as soon as possible so that we can begin our year end inventory.  We did our last Home Reading exchange on Thursday and ask that all reading books come back to school on Monday, June 21 so that we can begin preparing the reading carts to be ready for our return to school in the fall.

The students have all really enjoyed their work with planting and growing things in our school yard these past two weeks.  I have been watering all of the planters twice a week to make sure that our plants take root.  During the summer, I could use some volunteers to help with the watering.  I have set up a on-line sign up so that people can volunteer to come to school to water over the summer months.  It is set up for one week at a time.  If you sign up, you are promising to come to the school every 3-4 days if there has been no rain and water the plants.  If Mother Nature provides the water, you do not have to come to the school.  There is a water access right near the playground, so you can bring your children to play and do some watering at the same time.  In order to access the water and equipment, I will contact the first volunteer in July and show them where everything is and how to get to it.  At the end of the week, they will text the next volunteer and arrange a time to meet and walk them through the process.   Thank you to those families who have already signed up for July and the beginning of August.  We are still looking for volunteers for the last 3 weeks of the summer.  Please consider signing up if you think you might be around during that time.  You can find the sign up here.

Upcoming

Monday June 21 - Please return all Library books and Home Reading books

Monday June 28 - Last Day of Classes

This Adventurous Week of Learning

 We have had such a hot start to the last month of school.  We have taken advantage of the weather to get outside for gym, reading, and planting.  Here are some of the things we have been working on:

Our outdoor skipping has been so much fun.  We are making sure to get out in the morning to avoid getting overheated.  Students are able to skip individually and are learning how to work as a small group to turn a larger rope for their friends.  They are also using hula-hoops and skip-its to explore the coordination needed for skipping activities.

In Math, we refined our skills at solving addition equations that contain a missing number 7+__=12.  Once students showed that they understood that work, we moved to doing similar work with subtraction equations.  14-__=9.  Students are becoming flexible at working with numbers and using the "part, part, whole" and their triangle math to figure out how to solve for missing numbers in equations.

Our Science unit on building things has begun!  The students are so excited and filled with creative ideas.  We began with reviewing the 3D shapes from our Math unit and tried to build structures with marshmellos and toothpicks.  Students soon discovered that those structures were unstable unless they used triangular shapes or extra supports.  The next build we did was inspired by the book, "Not A Box" by Antoinette Portis.  Students created a plan to build something creative from a box.  The challenge of trying to create what they pictured in their mind out of a single material was very engaging.  Some students persevered with the plan they had made, some made adaptations to their plan, and others changed their minds completely and created something different from their original vision.

We are also revisiting our needs of plants and environmental stewardship concepts from earlier in the year.  Students enjoyed using magnifying glasses to look closely at the seeds they received this week.  They are excited to try growing sunflowers and radishes at school and to document their progress.  On Friday, every student in our class worked with a partner to plant a seedling perennial of a native flower.  We have added these plants to the long rectangular space with the trees next to the parking lot.  These plants are ones that are common to the Twelve Mile Coulee, Nose Hill, and other grasslands area around southern Alberta.  We will be using this as a learning opportunity.  Students will learn to identify these plants at school and then find them when we are out in the natural environment.

We were excited to have a Fire Safety presentation on Thursday.  As we are unable to have a live visit from a fire fighter, we had a presentation over video conference.  Students learned about fire prevention, detection, and evacuation.  They were encouraged to "close before you doze" as having bedroom doors closed when you sleep can protect you if fire breaks out in the night.  Students also learned about the importance of having a family evacuation plan.

As you have already heard, Ms. White will be leaving Tuscany School at the end of June as she is retiring.  We are working on a couple of special things to send her off with good memories.  We had a chance to meet our new principal, Mr. Tomczyk, today when he came by to say hi.

Upcoming

Monday June 7 - Home Reading

Wednesday June 9 - Coulee Walk

Thursday June 10 - Home Reading

Friday June 11 - Final Library Exchange - All library books will be collected the following week (Jn14-18)

We Are Back! - May 24-28

I want to start this post by saying thank you to the parents for all their hard work over the past two weeks while the students were at home.  I know that many of you were managing work from home as well as trying to support one, two, or more kids with their school work.  I know what a challenge this has been.  Thanks to all of your work, your kids have continued to grow and learn.  

Our first four days back have been packed with activity and learning.  Here is some of what we have been up to.

Students have done some journal writing this week to share what some of their favourite activities were at home and what they were most looking forward to this week back at school.  I am impressed at how independent students have become with their journal writing and how adept they are becoming at adding some descriptive words to their work.

We also started a new reading and writing project this week.  We have decided to use our growing skills in order to learn about a wild animal that lives in our neighbourhood.  Students had so many animals that they were interested in that it was hard to choose just one that we could work on together.  After several rounds of voting, we finally chose to learn about cougars.  We will be using books, videos and on line resources to collect information.  We will then do some non-fiction writing about cougars and we will finish by learning how to put this information into a google slide presentation.  The students are very excited to learn about this amazing animal.

Our Math this week has been focussed on developing flexibility with addition and subtraction through learning about part, part, whole.  We have been working on equations that are in a different order and that have a missing number, not just looking for the sum or difference.  Example 4+__=12 or 16=6+__. This has been challenging work, but it really helps students develop flexibility in their mathematical thinking.

In Phys. Ed., we are revisiting skipping this month as a way to be physically active outside.  We do have school skipping ropes, but I have told the students that they are welcome to bring their personal skipping ropes to school, if they like.  If your child wants to bring his/her own rope, please ensure that he/she have their name on their rope so that there is no confusion.  Students have become more comfortable with jumping with the teacher turning the big rope.  I will be helping them to learn how to turn a large rope with a partner so that they can skip with a group of friends.  We will also be learning some skipping rhymes.

We are wrapping up our colour unit this week with an exploration of using natural objects to create colours.  Just before our on-line learning, we gathered up some natural materials and soaked them in boiling water to see if we could extract some colour.  We used blueberries, strawberries, turmeric root, beet root, coffee, onion skins, and red cabbage.  Students made predictions about the colours and this week we made observations of the results.  We then used the natural colour to paint a landscape picture that we drew. 

Thanks to all of the parents who sent in recycled materials for our upcoming building unit.  We will be sorting our supplies after school today and will let you know if there is anything else that we are looking for that you can collect for us.  The students are dying to find out what building projects we will be working on in the coming weeks.

The last 4 weeks of school always go by so quickly.  Please check the blog each week to keep  up to date with the things that we are doing.

Upcoming

Monday May 31 - Home Reading Exchange

Thursday June 3 - Home Reading Exchange

Friday June 4 - Library Exchange

Monday June 7 - Home Reading Exchange

Wednesday June 9 - Coulee Walk - Afternoon

Our Learning Indoors and Out - April 27-30

 What a wonderful week to take our learning outdoors once again.  As we wrap up April, it is finally starting to feel more like spring.  Here is what we have been up to this week:

We had a wonderful trip to Twelve Mile Coulee on Tuesday afternoon.  Students were focussing on observing closely and documenting their observations in detail through drawing, shading and labeling.  We also did an activity where we wrote what we "See, Think, Wonder".  This allows students to look carefully at their surrounding and to think deeply and engage their curiosity about the environment.  We were disappointed that, due to Covid, we could not spend some of our time on the land with Saa'Kokoto, but we had him in our hearts and in our ears.  We took a speaker along with us and listened to a recording of one of his amazing stories as we sat in the grass in a clearing amidst the trees.

For our reading, our focus is on learning about long vowels and what different ways we might see a long vowel show up.  For example, long o can be made the following ways:

 o alone (old, only).        ow (crow, window)         o_e (note, hole)          oa (road, goat)

Students are learning about the patterns of long vowels and are learning to try both long and short sounds in an unfamiliar word to see if they can tell which one sounds right.

Many students continue to progress with their reading of the high frequency list words.  If your child recently received a new list, please help him/her to practice.

We enjoyed working on our Hip Hop dancing again this week on a live stream with the people from Sound Kreations.  We learned to move our bodies in new ways to try and make ourselves dance like robots.  It was so much fun.

The big concept that we began exploring this week is "Mood".  To begin with, we brainstormed words that we know that describe our feelings and emotions.  We then worked to use these words when we wrote about being in the coulee.

On Friday, we looked at some pieces of art that used bold colours.  We discussed how the bright, colourful paintings made us feel.  We then painted a flower with bold colours and described our feelings and what experiences these colours brought to mind.  Next we looked at pieces of art that used pastel colours and noticed how those colours had a different feel to us.  We added white to our bold colours to make pastel coloured paints and used them to paint a second flower.  Our next step was to write about the emotions and memories that those colours evoked.

Upcoming

Monday May 3 - Home Reading Exchange

Wednesday May 5 - Hats on For Mental Health 

Thursday May 6 - Home Reading Exchange

Friday May 7 - Library Exchange

Sunday May 9 - Happy Mother's Day!

Our Work This Week - April 19-23

 Despite our crazy Spring weather, we managed to spend some more time outdoors and extend our learning into our environment.  Here is some of the work we have been doing:

In Science, we focussed on the signs of Spring that are appearing around us.  Students went outdoors to look closely at the emerging plants and how the trees are changing.  They also hunted to see if they could find bugs or any signs of animals that are becoming active again.  They documented their work in their visual journals.  

With Earth Day falling on April 22nd, we talked about what the Earth provides for us and what our responsibility is to care for our planet.  Students learned of a number of different actions that they can do to make a difference to our environment and each student chose an action and made a pledge to work on this action for the coming year.   We drew and wrote our pledges on blue paper that was shaped as a raindrop and then created a garden mural for our rain to nourish. 

We wanted to add some extra art to our Earth Day projects, so students looked at the globe and some pictures of the planet from space and create a visual using blue and green.  They coloured their Earth with washable markers and then we sprayed them with water to make the colours blend.  With a black and starry background, the art is quite striking.  

We began our work with Sound Kreations this week and have enjoyed learning some moves.  We are working on making a dance to go with the hip hop song "The Three Pigs Rap".  We will be working towards mastering the dance in the coming weeks and I will be filming the final performance so that we can share it with you at the end of our school wide dance unit.

Upcoming

Monday April 26 - PD Day - No School for Student

Tuesday April 27 - Home Reading - Afternoon Coulee walk

Thursday April 29 - Home Reading Exchange

Friday April 30 - Library Exchange - Fun Snack

 

This Week's Learning - April 12-16

The week has just flown by.  We have been busy practicing our skills and tackling some new concepts.  Here are some of the highlights:

This was a great week for working on our soccer skills both inside and outside.  We are developing ball control, passing and shooting skills.  Students are working to move the ball towards a goal and to try defending against another player.

In Language Arts, we have begun focussing on developing our descriptive vocabulary.  We are practicing thinking of interesting adjectives to describe a variety of objects.  We will continue to build our vocabulary and practice adding more interesting words to our writing.  We began another story writing project this week.  We read the book "Corduroy" and decided to write a story about a lost object.  Students brainstormed ideas about what they could have lost and created a story map about places they could look for the lost item and what else they might find along the way.  We then wrote the beginning of the story and tried to include some descriptive words.

In Science, we continued to explore colour through investigating how paint interacts with a variety of materials.  We used the scientific method to experiment with materials and record our observations.  

We also explored materials that are transparent, translucent, and opaque.  We used black card stock, coloured cellophane, wax paper, tissue paper, and tin foil to create a stain glass window to demonstrate these three properties.  We have put our projects up in the windows of our classroom, so please come by and view our work.

Next week we will begin our work with Sound Kreations.  We will be learning about the Hip Hop style of dance.  It should be very exciting.

Upcoming

Monday, April 19 - Home Reading

Tuesday April 20 - Sound Kreations dance sessions begin

Thursday April 22 - Earth Day - Wear Green and Blue - Home Reading Exchange

Friday April 23 - Library Exchange

Monday April 26 - PD Day - No School for students

Tuesday April 27 - Home Reading Exchange - Coulee Walk in the afternoon.